Teamwork in the workplace has become commonplace. When working with a team, a user can expect to participate in various meetings, and thus to receive invitations to a variety of internal meetings, client conference calls, lunch requests, and the like. The user is likely to respond to a meeting request based on whether the meeting conflicts with another on the user's calendar, which the user is oftentimes alerted about in the request. Or, when a meeting is being scheduled, the scheduler may utilize a scheduling assistant functionality that checks other individuals' calendars to find a best time for a meeting or appointment or alerts the scheduler when a meeting or appointment conflicts with another on the user's or an attendee's calendar.
When making a decision on when to schedule a meeting or whether to accept or decline a meeting request, current scheduling systems disregard an individual's attention or alertness level. For example, it is commonly known that people's energy levels and cognitive functioning fluctuate throughout the day, and typically dip in the afternoon. That is, most people will have certain points in their days when they feel more energetic, and it is likely that these are the times in the people's days with the highest productivity potential for them. Likewise, there are certain points in a person's day when that person feels less energetic, and it is likely that these times are the lowest productivity times for the person. At off-peak times, a meeting attendee may have less attention, which can make it harder for the meeting attendee to absorb new information or to resist distractions. A person's high and off-peak times can be based on the person's circadian rhythm, or on other factors, such as other activities in the person's day. However, when a meeting or appointment conflicts with an individual's high-potential time (i.e., the meeting or appointment occurs outside of the time when the individual is more productive), current scheduling systems do not provide scheduling functionalities that provide for attention-based scheduling.